Wonderfully Made

David wrote in Psalm 139:14 about the mystery of birth that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Every parent who holds a newborn in their arms, examining their fingers and toes, knows that feeling of wonderment. As Eugene Peterson wrote, “In the presence of birth, we don’t calculate—we marvel.”

Ancient Jews had little medical knowledge, but they knew God was the giver of life and that life began in the womb. Isaiah 49:1 says, “The Lord called me before I was born. He named me while I was in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 22:10 says, “I was given over to you at birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.” We have visible proof in the New Testament. John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb when the Holy Spirit let him know he was near the Savior—just beginning to grow in Mary’s womb.

What the Jews accepted as a miracle from God, unfortunately, our society has decided can be disposed of if inconvenient. January 22, 2018 was the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. The ever-growing tally is now at 60 million abortions since that 1973 ruling. And the United States is 1 of only 7 countries that allow abortion after 20 weeks (putting us in a group with such human rights giants as North Korea).

The House passed a bill last week called the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Videos of their own employees have shown Planned Parenthood, the largest U.S. abortion provider, negotiating the sale of baby body parts. They have begun using less harsh techniques in abortions, so as not to damage the merchandise—fetal tissue. Because of this, more babies are being born alive during an abortion. The proposed law makes it a federal crime for a doctor or nurse to kill the baby or leave it without medical care, so the baby dies on the table. Things that have been happening. Under the proposed law, doctors and nurses must provide emergency medical care and send the baby to a hospital. But the law is probably destined to meet the same fate in the Senate that the babies meet.

In a book called Articles of Faith by journalist Cynthia Gorney, she tried to explain to each side of the abortion debate how the other side looks at it. To pro-choice people who want to know why pro-life people are so agitated, she gave this example: “[what if] the Supreme Court has just decided that states have to make it legal for women who are in a terrible situation to dispose of their three-year-olds in medical clinics. It’s a grave and serious matter, but ultimately, the three-year-olds are the offspring of those women, and it must be up to the women and their doctors to decide when, and if, those three-year-olds get terminated. That is how Roe v. Wade looks to right-to-life people. It’s that horrifying. If that happened tomorrow, would you try to overturn it or stop other people from doing it?”

Gorney also wrote what pro-choice people believe but said that it sounded nonsensical to pro-life people. “Pro-choice people believe that there’s something going on in the uterus that’s ‘potential life.’” She is right that is nonsensical because the mystery as to what’s going on inside the womb has been solved. We can watch it happen with ultrasounds. In 1973 when the Supreme court heard Roe v. Wade, medical experts could not agree on when life started, and there were no ultrasounds. Since they were invented, the court has avoided letting such cases be brought back to them. They know they could not use the “no one knows” excuse today. Statistics show that if every woman could see an ultrasound of her baby, 83% of them would NOT go through with an abortion. (For obvious reasons, Planned Parenthood does not offer ultrasounds.)

The Supreme Court ruling also made little common sense because they decided to err on the side of death rather than life—totally against nature. If you pulled your child or grandchild out of a swimming pool and the child didn’t appear to be breathing, would you just give up or would you try to do CPR? You would err on the side of life—assume there is life there, not death.

We can pray that someday soon the highest court in the land will take the opportunity to revisit a ruling they passed in 1973. A ruling based on information that every first-year medical student now knows is wrong.

National award-winning journalist Vicki Huffman's latest book is The Jesus Moses Knew: How to See Christ in the Old Testament. Her other books are: A Secret Hope (novel); Still Looking: Finding the Peace of God in Job Loss; Plus Living: Looking for Joy in All the Right Places; and The Best of Times. All are available in print and e-book on amazon.com. Vicki has taught the Bible for many years and has been an editor for several Christian publishing houses, including Thomas Nelson and David C. Cook Ministries.